scholarly journals Comparative Evaluation of Essential Oils from Medicinal-Aromatic Plants of Greece: Chemical Composition, Antioxidant Capacity and Antimicrobial Activity against Bacterial Fish Pathogens

Molecules ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thekla I. Anastasiou ◽  
Manolis Mandalakis ◽  
Nikos Krigas ◽  
Thomas Vézignol ◽  
Diamanto Lazari ◽  
...  

The administration of antibiotics in aquaculture has raised concern about the impact of their overuse in marine ecosystems, seafood safety and consumers’ health. This “green consumerism” has forced researchers to find new alternatives against fish pathogens. The present study focused on 12 Mediterranean medicinal-aromatic plants as potential antimicrobials and antioxidant agents that could be used in fish aquaculture. In vitro assays showed that the essential oils (EOs) from all studied plants had anti-bacterial and antioxidant properties, with their efficacy being dependent on their chemical composition. More specifically, EOs rich in carvacrol, p-cymene and γ-terpinene exhibited not only the strongest inhibitory activity against the growth of bacterial pathogens (inhibitory concentration: 26–88 μg mL−1), but also the greatest total antioxidant capacity (ABTS: 2591–5879 μmole mL−1; CUPRAC: 931–2733 μmole mL−1). These compounds were mainly found in the EOs from Greek oregano (Origanum vulgare subsp. hirtum), Spanish oregano (Thymbra capitata) and savoury (Satureja thymbra) collected from cultivations in Greece. The specific EOs stand out as promising candidates for the treatment of bacterial diseases and oxidative stress in farmed fish. Further in vivo experiments are needed to fully understand the effects of EO dietary supplementation on fish farming processes.

Author(s):  
Julian Alfke ◽  
Uta Kampermann ◽  
Svetlana Kalinina ◽  
Melanie Esselen

AbstractDietary polyphenols like epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG)—which represents the most abundant flavan-3-ol in green tea—are subject of several studies regarding their bioactivity and health-related properties. On many occasions, cell culture or in vitro experiments form the basis of published data. Although the stability of these compounds is observed to be low, many reported effects are directly related to the parent compounds whereas the impact of EGCG degradation and autoxidation products is not yet understood and merely studied. EGCG autoxidation products like its dimers theasinensin A and D, “P2” and oolongtheanin are yet to be characterized in the same extent as their parental polyphenol. However, to investigate the bioactivity of autoxidation products—which would minimize the discrepancy between in vitro and in vivo data—isolation and structure elucidation techniques are urgently needed. In this study, a new protocol to acquire the dimers theasinensin A and D as well as oolongtheanin is depicted, including a variety of spectroscopic and quadrupole time-of-flight high-resolution mass spectrometric (qTOF-HRMS) data to characterize and assign these isolates. Through nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, polarimetry, and especially circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy after enzymatic hydrolysis the complementary atropisomeric stereochemistry of the isolated theasinensins is illuminated and elucidated. Lastly, a direct comparison between the isolated EGCG autoxidation products and the monomer itself is carried out regarding their antioxidant properties featuring Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) values. These findings help to characterize these products regarding their cellular effects and—which is of special interest in the flavonoid group—their redox properties.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Hossein Saeidnejad ◽  
Peyman Rajaei

Essential oils constitute a heterogeneous collection of chemical compounds. Their main characteristics are that they all synthesized by plants and are volatile and mostly soluble in ethanol. They have traditionally been obtained from plants and they have been widely used for insecticidal, medicinal and cosmetic purposes. Essential oils contains about 20–60 components at quite different concentrations and they are characterized by two or three major components at fairly high concentrations. Lately, the essential oils and various extracts of plants have gained special interest as sources of natural antimicrobial and antioxidant agents because of the resistance to antibiotics that some microorganisms have acquired and the possible toxicities of the synthetic antioxidants. Spices consumed daily in different types of food to improve flavors, since ancient times, are well known for their antioxidant and antimicrobial properties. During recent decades, numerous numbers of plants have been monitored for their possible role as repellents and insecticides. In this review, the chemical composition profile of some important medicinal plants was evaluated, then antimicrobial properties of a number of essential oils was compared. Antioxidant activity of some essential oils was also considered. Finally, essential oil repellent properties an an important characteristics was evaluated. Further investigation for available data related to the other biological properties of medicinal plants essential oil is recommended.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/ijls.v9i2.12043 International Journal of Life Sciences 9 (2) : 2015; 9-13


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (19) ◽  
pp. 5848
Author(s):  
Oberdan Oliveira Ferreira ◽  
Celeste de Jesus Pereira Franco ◽  
Everton Luiz Pompeu Varela ◽  
Sebastião Gomes Silva ◽  
Márcia Moraes Cascaes ◽  
...  

Eugenia florida DC. belongs to the Myrtaceae family, which is present in almost all of Brazil. This species is popularly known as pitanga-preta or guamirim and is used in folk medicine to treat gastrointestinal problems. In this study, two specimens of Eugenia florida (Efl) were collected in different areas of the same region. Specimen A (EflA) was collected in an area of secondary forest (capoeira), while specimen B (EflB) was collected in a floodplain area. The essential oils (EOs) were extracted from both specimens of Eugenia florida by means of hydrodistillation. Gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC/MS) was used to identify the volatile compounds present, and the antioxidant capacity of the EOs was determined by antioxidant capacity (AC-DPPH) and the Trolox equivalent antioxidant (TEAC) assay. For E. florida, limonene (11.98%), spathulenol (10.94%) and α-pinene (5.21%) were identified as the main compounds of the EO extracted from sample A, while sample B comprised selina-3,11-dien-6α-ol (12.03%), eremoligenol (11.0%) and γ-elemene (10.70%). This difference in chemical composition impacted the antioxidant activity of the EOs between the studied samples, especially in sample B of E. florida. This study is the first to report on the antioxidant activity of Eugenia florida DC. essential oils.


Molecules ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (24) ◽  
pp. 4570 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarína Kozics ◽  
Mária Bučková ◽  
Andrea Puškárová ◽  
Viktória Kalászová ◽  
Terézia Cabicarová ◽  
...  

In this study, we determined the antimicrobial activity of ten essential oils (EOs)—oregano, thyme, clove, arborvitae, cassia, lemongrass, melaleuca, eucalyptus, lavender, and clary sage—against drug-resistant microorganisms previously isolated from patients with skin infections. The essential oil compositions were determined using gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC/MS). The assayed bacteria included Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Proteus vulgaris, Citrobacter koseri, and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Two drug-resistant yeasts (Candida albicans and Candida parapsilosis) were also involved in our survey. Oregano, thyme, cassia, lemongrass and arborvitae showed very strong antibacterial and antifungal activity against all tested strains. These results show that these essential oils may be effective in preventing the growth of the drug-resistant microorganisms responsible for wound infections. In this study, the genotoxic effects of tested essential oils on healthy human keratinocytes HaCaT were evaluated using the comet assay for the first time. These results revealed that none of the essential oils induced significant DNA damage in vitro after 24 h. Moreover, the treatment of HaCaT cells with essential oils increased the total antioxidant status (TAS) level. The obtained results indicate that EOs could be used as a potential source of safe and potent natural antimicrobial and antioxidant agents in the pharmaceutical and food industries.


Agronomy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 727 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonios Chrysargyris ◽  
Maria Mikallou ◽  
Spyridon Petropoulos ◽  
Nikolaos Tzortzakis

In the present study, the yield, the chemical composition, and the antioxidant activities of the essential oils (EOs) of eight medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) cultivated under two environmental conditions characterized by a different altitude (namely mountainous and plain) were evaluated. Cultivation at different environmental conditions resulted in significant differences in the chemical composition and antioxidant activity for most of the studied species. In particular, high altitudes resulted in increased phenolic compounds’ content and antioxidant activity for artemisia plants, while specific parameters increased in the case of spearmint (total phenols) and rosemary (flavonoids). In contrast, in pelargonium, all the tested parameters were positively affected in the plain area, whereas, for laurel and sage, only flavanols remained unaffected. EO yield in mountainous pelargonium and spearmint decreased while, in mountainous laurel, pelargonium and spearmint increased when compared to plain areas. In addition, the major EO constituents’ content for most of the species were affected by environmental conditions. The 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl-hydrate (DPPH) and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) were variably correlated with total phenols, flavonoids, and flavanols, depending on the species and the altitude. Lastly, in limited cases, antioxidant activity (DPPH or FRAP values) was positively correlated with some EO components (e.g., borneol and β-pinene in artemisia and laurel plants grown in the plain, respectively, or 1,8-cineole in mountainous grown verbena plants). In conclusion, environmental conditions (altitude) affected antioxidants’ content and EO yield and composition of the studied MAPs. These findings can be used to introduce cultivation of MAPs in specific ecosystems for the production of high added value products.


2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (18) ◽  
pp. 1787-1793 ◽  
Author(s):  
S Soyingbe O ◽  
O Oyedeji A ◽  
K Basson A ◽  
Singh M ◽  
R Opoku A

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. e1700006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Vieira ◽  
Lucinda J. Bessa ◽  
M. Rosário Martins ◽  
Sílvia Arantes ◽  
António P. S. Teixeira ◽  
...  

2006 ◽  
Vol 61 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 527-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Sadilova ◽  
Florian C. Stintzing ◽  
Reinhold Carle

Acetone extracts from eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) and violet pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) peels both belonging to the Solanaceae plant family were characterized with respect to their anthocyanin profiles, colour qualities and antioxidant capacities. According to HPLC-DAD-MS3 analyses the major anthocyanin in eggplant was delphinidin-3-rutinoside, while the predominant pigment in violet pepper was assigned to delphinidin-3-transcoumaroylrutinoside- 5-glucoside. Since virtually all anthocyanins were delphinidin-based, the effect of acylation and glycosylation patterns on colour stability and antioxidant capacity could be assessed. Application of two in vitro-assays for antioxidant capacity assessment revealed that eggplant generally exhibited higher values compared to violet pepper which was ascribed to 3,5-diglycosylated structures predominating in the latter. The higher extent of acylation in violet pepper was reflected by a more purplish colour shade of the extracts, but did not translate into a higher stability against fading which again was attributed to additional glycosyl substitution at C5. These findings support the relevance of structurerelated activities of anthocyanins both for understanding food colour and their particular nutritional value.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document